Happy, unguarded, and snarl-free, Pink told REDBOOK all about childbirth, couples therapy, and how she won her husband back (hint: lingerie was involved).

Most Read

"Hi, I'm Alecia," says the woman otherwise known as Pink, extending her right hand while the other one gently blocks her 17-month-old daughter, Willow, from spinning into a nearby wall. A few hours later, at a wine bar around the corner from her apartment in Los Angeles, she explains the difference between the two personas: "Pink is what I do," she says. "Alecia is who I am. The world has taken Pink and turned it into this thing, a brand--a snarl." And with that, she flashes a toothy sneer and bursts out laughing.

That don't-you-mess-with-me look may be a Pink trademark, but these days the pop star isn't spending too much time on the negative, not with the release of her number-one, Grammy-nominated album The Truth About Love, a major beauty contract with CoverGirl, a marriage to motocross champion Carey Hart that's more solid than ever, and a megatour that she's kicking off this month with baby Willow in tow. So who is this Alecia person? First off, she sounds softer, literally. "I quit smoking, so I lost my rasp," she says. "I sound like af---in' chipmunk." Not quite true--she's still a little husky, and swears like a drunken sailor, obviously. But Alecia is much more mellow than Pink, more domestic diva than hell-raiser. She talks about the pasta she's learned to whip up from scratch, tells me she's so obsessed with wine that she now makes her own from grapes she grows herself, and reveals she's a no-frills stay-at-home mom, more content in her 800-square-foot apartment in the hip enclave of Venice, CA, than in her grander home in Malibu.

Looking relaxed in slouchy trousers, a black leather jacket, and ankle boots, Pink (born Alecia Beth Moore) hides little when talking about her once-rocky relationship with Hart. The pair split for 11 months in 2008 before ripping up the divorce papers. "People are always like, 'Why did you get back together?'" she says. "Well, we weren't done. And now we have Willow, so we'll never be done." Listen as the unguarded, whip-smart, gracious, and just- plain-cool Pink opens up about couples therapy, forgiveness, and learning to raise a little hellion much like herself.

REDBOOK: Congrats on your album! I love it.

PINK: Thanks. It was a total accident. [Willow] was 7 months old when I started recording it. I had no idea how it was going to go. I told everyone, "I don't know if I have anything to say, because I'm in a fog right now of: Have I breast-fed my child enough? And is my husband still in love with me? Should we have sex? What kind of sex? My boobs hurt. Should I be on birth control?" And then the music stuff: "Do I have anything to write about? We're going to tour? How is it going to work? Do we take the Pack 'n Play?"

RB: Sounds like you had plenty of material to work with. How did Willow factor in to your songwriting?

P: For one, I no longer wake up and sit on the couch and go, "Am I happy?" I wake up and go [in a high-pitched voice], "Hi, Willow! Let's dance! Look at the sun!" So the album reflects that.

RB: Tell me about her.

P: I look at Willow and she's so naughty and fiery, and I'm not going to take any of her fierceness personally.

RB: What do you mean?

P: My mom took all of my behavior personally. Everything I did, she thought it was an act of rebellion against her. But it was just me being me. And that's something I want to post on every mirror in my house: This is not about you! [Laughs]

P: I try not to say no. I try to just divert. I have so many specific views about where people went wrong with me, in public school in Pennsylvania. My teachers hated me because I was curious... [but] I was also confrontational. I had a chip on my shoulder. I was really smart and I was really hurting. And I didn't get along with my mom, who was the sole parent at the time. I just wanted to move out, and I was like 10. [Laughs] That's why I named my album Missundaztood, and it's such a cliché now, but I think I was terribly misunderstood.

RB: Were you scared to become a mother because of your relationship with your mom?

P: Yeah. I had years and years of fear.

RB: What did your mom do that you vowed never to do?

P: Kick me out at 15. She never really tried to understand my experience and was trying to hold it together as a single mom, going to school full-time, working full-time, and raising two demons. I don't think anyone ever tried to understand her, so how could she have the knowledge to understand me? And I was such a challenge to her. I pressed so many personal buttons. But we weren't to understand [our relationship] until she was 60 and I was 30.

RB: So where are you now with her?

P: She's one of my closest friends.

RB: How did you reconcile?

P: Over the years, we just slowly worked it out. By 2005, 2006, she just decided to be happy. She left a 20-year relationship that was bad for her and went out on her own at 60 and found love. She became a happy person for the first time, which gave me such hope that as a woman, it's never too late. I enjoy her so much now. We have such a solid relationship.

RB: How were you able to forgive her for kicking you out at 15?

P: Because I know me. I was tough. I was there... No one tells you how hard it is to be a parent!

RB: Tell me what it's been like for you so far, starting with pregnancy.

P: I had such a clear idea of how things were supposed to be. I had Carey, God bless him. He's the best sport. [Laughs] We were going to do a home birth, no drugs--deep down, I'm a California crystal hippie lady. But after laboring at home for two days, I wound up with an emergency C-section! She was frank breech, which means she was like this [brings her knees up to her chest with her feet pointing to the ceiling].

RB: Well, she was just imitating you doing those high-wire acrobatics when you perform.

P: I know! [Laughs] I did everything to turn that baby around. I thought I was pretty tough. But when this harsh contraction hit, I was like, "You have got to be kidding me!" I felt like I was being scooped out like a pumpkin and hit by a train--all at the same time. I looked at Carey and was like, "Will you still respect me if I throw in the towel?" She was nine pounds.

RB: That's big!

P: That first night in the hospital, she was having a complete meltdown, and Carey was out of it. But this nurse came in and she helped me through the whole thing. We sat up and talked all night with my baby in my arms, and it was like my whole life made sense, for the first time, ever.

RB: How's Carey taking to fatherhood?

P: He's such a good dad, but he was raised by a single dad. His mother left when he was little. My parents divorced and I didn't have much of a daddy growing up. And he never had any womanly training, a feminine touch. It's been a journey for both of us. We found each other for a reason. Like I sing [about how] he's just a total dick and I love him. [Laughs]

RB: I love that song! Every wife can relate.

P: There was such a backlash about that song! "She's a monster! Poor Carey!" But I think anyone who's been in a long-term relationship will understand. I have a sense of humor about us and I use it!

P: Because we were working all the time; there was so much time between our visits. Carey would see me for five days and be gone for six weeks. We'd try to fix everything in those five days--you just can't do that. And it builds and builds and you don't even know what to say or fight about anymore, and there's no middle ground, and it's like, f--- it, we're not getting anywhere.

RB: How did you get back together?

P: Eleven months after we broke up, he asked me to fly to Las Vegas to perform on New Year's Eve at his club. I wanted to see him. And I looked hot. There's something about breaking up with someone--you just look hotter than you ever did before. I will never look as good as I did those six months after we broke up. Never! [Laughs] Anyway, after sound check I told him that he needed to come to my room. I had made him a photo album of all the cards he had ever given me, of all the photos of our entire relationship. I spent months on this album. On the last page, I pasted a photo of me from a really bad movie I made years ago with my neck slit and blood everywhere. Next to it I wrote, "This is me without you." On the next page, there was a picture of a baby. And I wrote: "The rest is unwritten." The divorce papers that we never signed were behind that page. I was like, "The rest is up to you." And I did all of this in his favorite bra and panties.

RB: You are good!

P: Carey said, "I want to get back together." And I said, "Tell me in the morning." And also, "I'm not having sex with you."

RB: And you didn't?

P: Nope, we laid together.

RB: Wow, great story. How has being a mom changed your relationship with Carey?

P: We fight nicer. There is no yelling in front of Willow, ever. We can argue, just no yelling. We are couples-therapy people. We do it for maintenance, not problems.

RB: Was he opposed to trying at the beginning?

P: He would jump off a cliff for me. He doesn't have a lot of ego. He's a champion athlete but knows how to put his ego aside. Ego is my problem--not in a Pink way, in an Alecia way. And Alecia gets very easily bruised.

RB: Why?

P: I've always felt like the underdog, and I'm comfortable with that label. With this CoverGirl contract, a number-one album, it's changed again... in a positive way. It's good that a girl like me can get a beauty contract.

RB: What do you mean, "a girl like me"?

P: Well, I was always considered butch. So a "girl like me" is someone who doesn't rest on her looks, who has had people tell me from day one, "You're never going to get magazine covers because you're not pretty enough." I'm totally comfortable with that. I know my strong points: I work hard, I have talent, I'm funny, and I'm a good person.

RB: So what makes you feel beautiful?

P: When I'm fit and healthy. When I get out of the shower and my skin looks okay and my teeth look sort of white, I feel like I didn't eat too much pizza the night before, and I can see sort of a line I used to have in my stomach. I'm not a hard sell these days.

RB: You have a six-pack and you hang upside down on stage!

P: Well, hanging upside down and being physical makes me feel beautiful. Feeling beautiful to me is when I feel good in my leather pants and my husband grabs my ass. Or when I'm sitting on a mat and my daughter runs to me with complete joy. Beautiful has never been my goal. Joy is my goal--to feel healthy and strong and powerful and useful and engaged and intelligent and in love. It's about joy. And there's such joy now.

4 things she learned in couples therapy

Rule #1: Marriage is a 100-percent commitment. "You can't have one foot in and one foot out," says Pink. "You have to dive in and be willing to be executed at the stake for the love you want."

Rule #2: Fighting can be a good thing... "I think it's really bad when a couple retreats to their sides of the dinner table and have nothing to say to each other," says Pink. "So there have been times where I'm like, As long as I can get Carey to bite, even if he's angry, [it means he] still cares. When you become silent and give up, you're doomed. We did that [in 2008]. We became silent, and we broke up."

Rule #3: ...but only when there's a goal in sight. "When my parents screamed, they never resolved anything," Pink says. "I knew how to walk away when I met Carey. I knew how to tell him to f--- off. But I didn't know how to sit at a table and actually work through something. Now we're really good at that."

Rule #4 (this one's from Carey): Learn to accept your spouse for who he or she is as a person. "Look, it's completely flattering that she's writing songs about me, calling me a tool and selling millions of albums doing it," says Carey. "I think it's pretty special to be the muse--it's the good, the bad, the ugly. I wouldn't expect anything else. That's why I love her, and why we're together."